Follow my feet as i travel through life…Just a big kid living out her dreams :)

10 things i’ve learnt about my bohemian soul…

When I was younger I absolutely hated change of any kind. I can’t even tell you the amount of times i stopped eating or drinking my favourite things because they changed the packaging. Note – I still stick with my theory that a new package means new ingredients.

I was plodding along in my happy little groundhog day life without a care in the world until I was 13 and my parents decided they wanted to move house. Not a small move either! We were moving 60 miles away! From Croydon – a busy, noisy, lively town in South London, to Beachlands – a quiet seaside village where nothing happened and there were only 4 buses a day…A DAY!?!!? In Croydon there are 4 buses every half hour just to put that into perspective for you. As you can guess it was a shock. The worst part for me was school. I’d never been very popular. I was awkward, quirky and painfully shy…to be honest I’m still all of those things haha.

All these changes were a lot to take in. They were all out of my control and I had no clue how to even begin dealing with it. Looking back now I think that’s the moment I began to change myself. I did all the usual things like dyeing my hair crazy colours, getting body parts pierced and trying out weird new fashions. It wasn’t until my first puppy love relationship ended at 17 that I had had enough. I packed my things and moved out of my parents house.

Cue the next 12 years of me roaming. Whenever anything changed that was out of my control, I made a change that I could control. I never thought of myself as a traveler, wanderer, nomad..whatever you want to call it, because the main part of my roaming was within the UK. Really though it doesn’t matter where you go, if you’re a traveling gypsy soul then you just can’t escape it.

In the last 12 years I’ve moved house 16 times and I am currently on job number 21, possibly higher, I lose count. Even writing that down now it seems absolutely insane! On paper I look awful! Unreliable, unpredictable and not at all a good prospect. In real life however I am quite the opposite. 100% reliable, never been unemployed for more than a month by choice and I work bloody hard at everything I do. I just get bored easily. I wasn’t meant to stay in one place, I don’t ever remember a career or a mortgage being a goal of mine. The longest I’ve stayed in one job was 2 years and I was miserable. It’s difficult to understand if you don’t share the same feelings and I often get into discussions about my lifestyle.

I thought I would share a few things that the ‘dirty hippy’ life has taught me over the years.

I own very few possessions. Although I have a room full of junk – self confessed hoarder of weird things right here – I own few things of real substance. Unless you can count an exercise bike as an armchair then I have no furniture. Whenever I move it’s bin liners packed full of whatever nonsense my soul feels it needs for this chapter. More often than not I don’t even unpack when I get there as I know I won’t be there for long.

I treasure real friendships. It’s tough to find true friends in this world as it is let alone when you don’t stay in one place for longer than 5 minutes! I am a big believer in soulmates not being confined to romantic connections. I only have a handful of pure friends, people who know the real me and I feel 100% comfortable around. I’m happy with that and I will cling to them forever. When I come across a soul that connects with mine like a puzzle piece, I make sure that person (or animal) stays in my life as long as possible. Sadly this has proved damaging in some instances but I won’t ever let that change.

I can sleep anywhere. Seriously…anywhere! I’ve slept on boats, in cars, in a car boot once! Floors, chairs, parks, hammocks, shop doorways (bad festival experience not homelessness). As long as I can cover my ears (irrational childhood bug fear) and there are no ghosts then I’m good 🙂

Family is a blessing and a curse. I love my family and I couldn’t live without them but I have to admit, there are some family aspects I enjoy much more from a distance. That said they are the only reason I ever come home again.

I always find a way to save. I might not know how I do it or even how much I have but if I need to hit a target I will hit it. The money doesn’t always get used for it’s intended purpose mind you. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve saved to get my drivers license!

I don’t need money to have fun. I will always choose a cheap evening over an extravagant one. Let’s go explore a new town/forest, stay in and watch movies, make sandcastles on the beach all day. Wanna lay in a field and make shapes out of clouds while having deep and meaningfuls about imaginary scenarios? I can find enjoyment in anything.

I never settle. Whether it be in one place, for a crappy meal, the wrong guy or a soul destroying job, I never do it! I’ve learnt from experience that monotonous routine can destroy you far quicker than chasing your dreams!

I am often misunderstood. People who don’t know me, sometimes even people who do, often get me all wrong. They assume I’m running from something, I’m unhappy, I’m unreliable etc. They call me a hippy as though it’s an insult when in truth it is the biggest compliment you could give me. I’m perfectly content with life, I just enjoy it in a different way. My heart knows what my soul needs and I am prepared to face the criticism to get it. My happy isn’t the same as yours and you know what? That’s OK.

I’m only truly happy when I’m on the move. An ex once likened me to a hummingbird for his own sickly sweet reasonings, but I like it for my own. Hummingbirds spend around 90% of their life span flying. They have feet to perch with, but feel much more comfortable in flight. In fact they do so much whilst in flight that if they were to stay perched for too long they could die…i relate to this more than you know.

I’ve learnt to love and believe in myself. Like I said in the beginning, that painfully shy, awkward misfit is still very much there but she is my best friend. Sure I have down days and sometimes I worry that I should be on the same path as everyone else, but overall I am really happy with the person I am today. I love spending time alone and never have to rely on anyone else to save me. Traveling, whether in your own country or someone elses, teaches you things you couldn’t learn anywhere else. It fills you with independence and a lust for life you never knew existed. Life shouldn’t be about plodding along living the same 24 hours over and over again. I thrive in new environments and work my butt off to get what I want from this world. I have learnt that no matter where I am or what I’m doing I’ll be OK because I’ve proved it to myself with every adventure I’ve taken and every time I’ve started over in a new place. You really can do whatever you set your mind to, you just have to believe in yourself!

So I may seem like a little lost wanderer but I’m actually my happiest when my little hippy gypsy soul is getting her feet dirty 🙂

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7 thoughts on “10 things i’ve learnt about my bohemian soul…”

Right, I’ve been looking at this blog entry for about two months. It’s about time I posted a reply to it! :p

There’s a lot here that I feel as well. I’ve not moved around as much as you (and I’ve always lived in places with a decent bus service – indeed the town I live in now is the smallest place I’ve ever lived, at approx 30,000 people – and I have to make do with a bus to my suburb only every hour on Sundays, though this increases to every half hour on Sunday evenings), but I’ve certainly had my fair share of different houses, towns, places, and to be honest I get quite bored with seeing the same four walls all the time. Even on holiday -> I never spend more than three nights in one place, I always have to be moving on to the next new town, country, environment …

Maybe it is what you’re used to growing up, or maybe it’s just something innate that’s a part of us, that could cripple us if we don’t utilise it.

I own very few possessions. Ah, I used to be a hoarder. Then I took a year out my life to travel. When I was clearing out my house in preparation, I realised there were hundreds of things I was holding on to for no reason, either for nostalgia purposes or because “it might come in useful one day”. I had a huge box of personal letters that penpals had sent me over the previous 20 years; I was sad to get rid of it as there’s a lot of my life in them, but in truth I hadn’t opened the box since moving into that house, 8 years previously. Sometimes it feels like it should be hard to let go, but after you do, you don’t worry about it at all. My house is now quite minimalistic, and makes it very efficient and quick to clean!

However…I’ve learnt to love and believe in myself. No, I’m still working on that! Travel has made me a little more self-confident, but I’m still awkward and shy around new people, and even when I travel I’m not as outgoing as I really ought to be. I miss out on quite a bit because I’m too nervous about making myself known. DoublePlusUnGood when having to do it in a foreign language as well.

And of course:I’m only truly happy when I’m on the move. Yes. As I say, I get bored easily. And the world is a big place. And I always feel like I’m missing out, that time’s running out, that one day I’ll be too old to travel the way and the places I do. So being stuck at home, at work, doing the same things every day, just feels like a pointless waste of my time.

Thank you so much for your comment 😃 I’m glad you decided to leave it, I love hearing that people feel the same way I do!
You may still feel nervous when you travel but it’s so amazing that you’re brave enough to go out and do it on your own 😊💕💕

Bravery … that’s what everyone says. They all say “oh you’re brave for going to these weird places on your own”. My response has always been, well, people live there, people make these journeys every day of their lives, they’re not brave, and all I’m doing is what they do.

I’ll concede this may be a ‘front’ for how I really feel about it; every time I come into land to a new place, my anxiety creeps up, my stomach churns, and I really feel I’ll be spending the next four days inside a dorm room too nervous to make human contact. It never happens like that, of course, but that’s the way it feels!

You’re brave too, in exactly the same way, so thank you for your thoughts. But do you *feel* brave?

Haha touché! I actually have a very similar answer when people say it to me. Since I was 17 people have been marvelling at how “brave” I am but I don’t feel it at all, my answer is always “I just get bored and wanna have adventures” honestly I very rarely even think about what I’m doing 🙈 it’s usually just a spontaneous “I wanna go here” decision haha!
It’s funny you mention anxiety of travelling actually as that’s the subject of a new blog post I’m writing at the moment 😊